An attempt at keeping my thighs from eating my shorts

Powering Down

When I feel that way it reminds me of when I was a kid when I would try to stay up past 9 to watch the Golden Girls. I wasn’t really particularly fond of the Golden Girls but I knew that once it came on it was officially past my bedtime. Therefore, if I found myself sitting in front of the TV while the Golden Girls was on then I knew I was getting away with something and felt compelled to partake in this act of rebellion by staying up and watching it.

I would try to revel in the moment but every time I would become so tired that my eyes would start to burn and water causing me to blink a million times. Eventually somewhere in the midst of a blink I would pass out.

This was exactly how I felt last week in the middle of a class… that I was teaching.

Only I didn’t fall asleep, instead I just kind of powered down in the middle of a sentence

“The books on my book shelf are not for shorrrr teeeeerm looooaan.”

I tried to play it off like it didn’t happen but then I heard a little voice say, “Uh… Mrs. Chapman? What was that?”

Then I got the giggles and I bent over and laughed until tears welled up in my eyes while my students sat there perplexed, trying to determine whether it was safer to stay quiet and let me have my episode or to laugh along with me. Fortunately, they chose the latter which made things a little less awkward.

All day on Friday I kept blinking my eyes because they really wanted to stay shut for a nice long nap. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me. Why was I so tired?

Sure, I had to work late several of the nights and yes I had woken up early to prepare lessons but this level of tired was weird. I passed out around nine on Friday night with the allusion that by Saturday I would feel well rested and ready to enjoy my weekend. When Saturday came around I woke up with a long list of things I needed to get done in order to have a successful week ahead but by mid-morning I was ready to go back to bed again.

I kept thinking this exhaustion was just all in my head and I couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t just snap out of it. Then I got my answer in the form of a sore throat… and then a runny nose… and then headache. I had flashbacks of the week before of all of the students with hacking coughs and runny noses who had come up to my desk asking if they could “borrow” a tissue.

“You just go on ahead and keep it.”

Thinking back on it, it was inevitable.

So that’s basically what I’ve been doing lately… trying to pretend like I’m not sick while I simultaneously pretend like all aspects of my life are in perfect control. In the mean time I’ve been having dreams about tornados and falling off cliffs.

Of all of the things I wanted to accomplish this labor day weekend the only thing I managed to do was finally take my monthly pictures so that I can honestly show you where I am with the whole weight loss business. (Hint: there isn’t a lot of weight loss going on.) I felt like it was time to get back into my routine of doing monthly progress reports. The plan was to post it on Sunday but then I felt like crap and I also looked like crap so I decided to wait to post the pictures at the end of the month with my new pictures for comparison. (I wanted to give myself a chance at redemption.)

In fact, at this very moment I feel like crap and I’m desperately trying to figure out a way to end this post so that I can go to sleep. So that’s what I’m going to do now. I’m powering down once more… in the middle of a thought. Because that pretty much sums my life right now.